


The Dread Wolf's Folly

by rubihowl



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, In Hushed Whispers, Mostly Canon Compliant?, Solas POV, Solas doesn't do so well in the doomed timeline, Solavellan, and unpleasant things, references to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:15:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25648699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubihowl/pseuds/rubihowl
Summary: Had it been a month, a year, an age since I saw her drawn into that vortex with the Tevinter Mage, my magic too slow to halt her loss? What did it matter now? Our defeat was thorough. The Breach thundered ever outward in the sky with no Anchor to still its expansion, torturing denizens of the Fade and this world of quicklings alike.It was not a boon that none knew it was my doing.[Solas' POV from In Hushed Whispers, both the doomed timeline, and following the Inquisitor's return]
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	The Dread Wolf's Folly

**Author's Note:**

> Solas' POV from In Hushed Whispers, just a one shot. My first post on ao3!
> 
> You can read my Lavellan's POV of these same events [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25648924).
> 
> Enjoy!

I had stopped marking the passage of time.

Had it been a month, a year, an age since I saw her drawn into that vortex with the Tevinter Mage, my magic too slow to halt her loss? What did it matter now? Our defeat was thorough. The Breach thundered ever outward in the sky with no Anchor to still its expansion, torturing denizens of the Fade and this world of quicklings alike.

It was not a boon that none knew it was my doing.

I had avoided ingesting the red lyrium, but it ultimately did not matter. Constant exposure to its presence had infected me regardless, the haze of decay radiating out from within me. It clogged my vision, and every day shadows passed in front of me, transient or corporeal. Hallucinations were nearly my only companions, taunting glimpses of my every failure as the Dread Wolf withered into slow mortality.

They came in waves, back and forth, until I was uncertain whether my mind had conjured them in this place or whether I was already dead, and this was eternity now. Mythal, laughing at my hubris; Andruil, mad and threatening; Anaris, smugly mocking my depreciated state.

Each faded in time, none as painful as the last, which visited me every night, like a gentle ghost.

She would walk toward me with a slow pace and a kind expression; she'd kneel next to my cage and reach her hand through to take mine, or to cup my jaw. I would apologize for killing her, and the pad of her thumb would move through my tears as she rubbed my cheekbone, failing to wipe the sorrow away.

"It's all right, Solas. Better I died this way than the Anchor tearing me apart, isn't it? Better I died before you had to tell me what you really are."

"Ir abelas, lethallan."

"I don't want your sorrow, Solas. I don't want your penance. Rest, now. Join me as soon as you are able."

She was good and I had killed her.

Footsteps sounded in the fetid water, some twenty paces outside the room where I was contained.

"Is someone there?" I called as I stood, wondering if I would ever see anyone real ever again.

She walked into the room, and my heart fell. My ghost had arrived early, no longer arriving to soothe me into sleep; here to soothe me into death.

I met her eyes, colored like autumn leaves preparing to leap in their final flurrying dance. Her gaze had wrought its truth upon me, and now I would pass into oblivion.

Her face was concerned, compassionate as she approached, yet she did not reach for me. I was ready, I thought. It was time. I might not even mind death if she would be there to take my hand.

I stepped forward, grasping my prison bars like an old friend, knowing I would be free of them at last. She looked so worried, and I nearly apologized again, but she had told me what she wanted. I would give my life to her, and fall into whatever absolution that would allow.

Finally she stepped closer, producing a key as she reached for my prison door. The back of her knuckles brushed my hand, warm and soft and everything I'd longed for in her nightly visits.

Real. She was real.

"You’re alive?" I was not dying?

"Yes," she replied quietly.

It couldn't be so. "We saw you die!"

"The spell Alexius cast displaced us in time," the Tevene explained, and for the first time I registered his presence. Blackwall stood behind them both, real, all of them real.

But my eyes did not move from hers, that face that haunted me with mercy in my darkest dreams.

"We just got here, so to speak," Dorian finished.

Real. She was real, and magic had brought her through time. She was every impossible hope that my failures could be undone, every mercy I could never deserve, and she was _real._

"Can you reverse the process?" I asked, managing not to tremble. "You could return and obviate the events of the last year. It may not be too late…"

She tugged the door open and stepped back. "I’m glad you understand what he just said, because I’m not sure I did."

I stepped through, my eyes never leaving her, a spirit brought to flesh. "You would think such understanding would stop me from making such terrible mistakes," I swallowed. "You would be wrong."

She held my eyes for a moment, and she reached out to comfort me. I began to babble, warding off her hand and rattling off everything that had happened since her disappearance. I could not stand for her to touch me, to bring the revelation that she was not real after all, that this final cruel hallucination of hope snatched from suffering would be my final memory.

Her intelligent eyes took in my every word, processing the horror I related, but her brows promised the kindness that obsessed me.

I finished, and was frozen as she reached for me again, a moment of truth. Her hand settled on my shoulder, comforting, warm, _real._ She squeezed me gently, and life flourished within me from her touch, warmth returning.

"We're going to go back, Solas, or die trying."

Her courage shamed me.

"If there is any hope, any way to save them..." I swallowed, and gave her what I should have given her long ago. "My life is yours."

Her eyes shone with tears. Tears of concern for me, for _me!_

"Solas, I—"

"This world is an abomination." My voice was stiff as the self-hatred that had calcified inside me turned to a sudden fire at her touch. "It must never come to pass."

She nodded, removing her hand and squaring her shoulders. She could do this. Miracle that she was, she could undo my every mistake.

We found the Spymaster and made to infiltrate the throne room, and as I drew on the Fade to fight I felt the weakness that had grown inside me, a lesion that would claim my life sooner rather than later. It did not matter. She was here, she was real, she was compassion and passion and fire. She could succeed where I could not.

Our task complete, our companions began the winding path back to the throne room. As I made to follow them, she slowed and placed her delicate touch on my wrist, all but freezing me in place.

"I will see this undone, Solas. All of it. This will never happen to you, if I have to trade my life to stop it."

She was so brave it made my heart ache.

I faced her, her cheeks blossoming with a flushed tinge as I pressed my hand to hers, a touch I had hallucinated for months. I gently squeezed her hand, desperate to put everything she meant to the world in her grasp.

"I know, lethallan. And I will do everything in my power to give you that chance."

She slew the magister, took his trinket, and we prepared to send her back.

When the demons bore down upon us, I thought only of her face, her determination, her compassion. I recalled her curiosity in Haven, wondering at who I might be. I would tell her, I decided. I would give her everything, my last hope, and in this, in giving her my life, I would tell my past self in his new life to give her the truth.

When the demon punctured my lung from below, freeing the core of weakness inside me to flood the whole of my frail, mortal body, I smiled that she would live.

* * *

As quickly as they had gone, they reappeared, the Tevinter mage and the Herald of Andraste tumbling out of one of those same peculiar rifts.

"You'll have to do better than that," the Tevene announced, all bravado.

All I felt was release from the tension that had seized me at her disappearance. It would have been impossible to fix any of this catastrophe without her.

And I could not live with myself if she died for my folly. Not her.

She was spattered with blood and ichor, dripping fluid on the flooring as she turned to the guilty Magister. The cold, still fury in her movement stirred something inside me. It pleased me to think she had a temper.

And yet as she caught sight of me, her shoulders relaxed, the wrath passing from her features. The impassive face of a grim leader reasserted itself, and she turned to make her pronouncements.

She was truly marvelous.

The Magister surrendered. The Ferelden Monarch arrived, piteously late.

And despite whatever she had just survived, she made the right choice. She invited the mages to join the Inquisition as free and equal partners.

It would have been easy for her to punish the mages for her ordeal, powerless as they were under her authority. It is not easy to hold onto one's principles when vengeance is an option, no matter how misplaced that vengeance may be.

It was a miracle that _she_ had acquired the Anchor, and not someone else.

The Inquisition's forces, now bolstered by the mages of southern Thedas, began the trek to Haven. We made camp for the evening, another day's march required to reach our destination.

I had begun to remove my outer vestments when I noticed her at the treeline, contemplating the Breach. It was her custom to help anyone who would allow it when marching — fewer people as time went on, and respect for her leadership grew — yet today she stood apart.

I approached and called to her. She acknowledged me with a nod, yet did not even glance in my direction.

I probed her gently about the experience, inquiring as to her certainty that the experience was real, and not a trick of the Fade. She assured me she knew the difference, her tone distant but her words confident, intelligent. I warned her to prepare herself for the Elder One, and her eyelids lowered with the impassive fury I had enjoyed at Redcliffe Castle, and somewhat besides.

She was not one to let her thoughts cross her face, yet in her passivity I saw what she concealed.

I stood before her, not allowing her to avoid the sight of me any longer.

"Lethallan," I said quietly.

After a moment's hesitation, her gaze found me, and a peculiar relief seemed to shape the set of her mouth, her full lips puckering and relaxing once, nearly distracting me. Her lovely autumn eyes settled on my own.

"Lethallin," she replied.

"I understand the future you saw was disturbing."

She did not reply.

"Is it troubling you now?"

"I saw you there," she said, her voice hovering above a whisper. "You were... not well."

I waited, and she swallowed.

"And you... pledged me your life, to undo what had been done to you."

It had meant something to her.

"A pledge wisely given," I observed. "You succeeded."

"Not yet, I haven't." She set her jaw. "But I will."

"I am relieved to hear it. You make few statements of such certainty; I am pleased this is one." I tilted my head, gauging her expression. "Though you've not expressed such surety before now."

She drew in a long breath. "I saw what happens if we fail. And..." She hesitated, her eyes apprehensive. "I watched you die, Solas."

Her eyelids flickered, as though to look away, but she kept her eyes on mine, filming with soft tears. "You died for me, and I _saw_ your body, lifeless on the floor, and I would have done anything, anything at all, to burn that world to the ground."

For me.

My heart stuttered as she rubbed her eyes, breaking eye contact at the admission. Tender warmth permeated my chest.

"I love this world, these people, this ridiculous Inquisition," she continued, meeting my eyes again. "If the Elder One wants to kill any of you, he will have to go through _me._ "

What courage.

I smiled, unable to stop myself. "If you are not already his greatest fear, you will be."

"Do you think a god would fear me?" She almost chuckled.

"I think any god should fear to cross you, lethallan," I said honestly. "The fire inside you is unlike any other in this world."

Her eyes pinched as she whispered her reply. "You died for me."

So kind. So _rare._ My body acted before I could stop it, placing one hand, gentle and light, on her cheek. The contact nearly startled me; she was so brave, so clever, it was hard to believe she was _real._

She blinked, surprised, and my pulse raced to see her lips part at my touch, to see her breath catch.

I did not deserve that response. Wildly, there came a heavy demand in my chest, urgent and relentless.

_Tell her the truth._

I swallowed, and told her another truth instead.

"And I would again, lethallan, if it meant undoing terrible mistakes."

Her lips barely moved, an unconscious slip.

_Dar i'ma._

_Stay with me._

Yet her eyes held some spark of perception, saw something I wasn't ready for her to see. I withdrew my hand, fearing that she would know me for what I was.

I gestured to the camp. "But there is no need for any sacrifices today, save those required for the evening meal. Join me?"

Her lips twisted in a mild smile as she nodded, stepping with me as I turned toward the fire I'd claimed. I glanced at her as we walked and found only warmth, the spark of perception having passed into a smile that was nearly shy. My answering smile was similar, my heart moving without my consent, and I rued this ruined world, that I could not give her more than comforting words.

For once she knew the truth, she would know me to have betrayed her from the start, and I could not yet bear to see the weight of my mistakes in her eyes.


End file.
